Max Gate, the house on the outskirts of Dorchester where author Thomas Hardy lived from 1885 to 1928

The country home where Thomas Hardy wrote some of his best known novels is to be opened in full to the public for the first time.

Max Gate in Dorchester, Dorset, was designed by the author himself and is where he played host to the luminaries of his time including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Marie Stopes and H G Wells.

From mid-March thousands of paying visitors will be able to examine the Victorian villa which is just down the road from the cottage where Hardy was born.

The building was left to the National Trust by the author's sister Kate in 1940.

Thomas Hardy and his second wife Florence are pictured outside Max Gate with their dog Wessex in 1914. The pooch was buried in the garden's pet's cemetery in 1926

Since 1994 only the hall, dining and drawing rooms and garden have been open twice a week to the public.

However, the National Trust has decided to open all three floors of the imposing brick house to the public five days a week from March to October.

Second year PhD student Jacqueline Dillion will be the new live-in custodian of the property. The Hardy scholar and former military intelligence specialist in the U.S. Army is also helping to restore the whole house to look like it would have done in Hardy's day.

Ms Dillion said: 'I could not be more excited about this opportunity. To live, work, and write in Hardy’s own house, to help restore the rooms that witnessed TE Lawrence, GB Shaw, Virginia Woolf and even the Prince of Wales’ visits, all while being a resident of Hardy’s own Casterbridge (Dorchester) are all dreams come true for me.'

 

 

Thomas Hardy, 74, is pictured in the garden outside Max Gate,  and again in his study

Visitors will be able to see two studies, the first of which was where the author wrote Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Jude The Obscure and 900 poems.

On the top floor they can glimpse into the attic room where his first wife, Emma, retreated to spend time alone as their marriage collapsed.

The couple became estranged in the 1890s and Emma occupied the second storey while Hardy worked in the study below. After she died in 1912 he wrote copious amounts of poetry expressing his grief. But two years later he married Florence Dugdale, who was 38 years his junior.

Hardy came from a family of builders and was himself an architect before becoming a full-time writer.

After years of travelling and occupying various homes in Dorset and in London, Hardy longed for a quiet, country home where he could write and still be close to his family.

He designed Max Gate himself and enlisted his father and brother to build it on a 1.5 acre plot in the countryside outside Dorchester.

In 1885 Hardy and his wife Emma moved in when Hardy was 45 years old. Records show the author worried about the cost of the building while his wife found it cold and draughty.

However, in time, Hardy came to love Max Gate and lived in the house until his death in 1928.

In 1940, Hardy’s sister left the house to the National Trust with the stipulation that it should be lived in.

Though Max Gate has been continually occupied since then, it was first opened to the public in 1994.

The custodians Andrew and Marilyn Leah showed off the ground floor to the public two days a week each summer but after 16 years are now moving on.

Ms Dillion will be the sole occupant of the house and plans to live there for three years. She will spend the first 18 months of her tenancy  completing a PhD on folklore in Hardy's literature for the University of St Andrews. She will help to restore the house's original furnishings during the second half of her stay.

'When Max Gate opens it will complete a wonderful picture,' she said.

Thomas Hardy's Library - books would soon spill into other rooms. A library catalogue reveals Flaubert's Madame Bovarv and Forster's A Passage to India were on shelves. Hardy played both the cello and violin.